Hypersexual Disorder: Just More Muddled Thinking

Kafka (2010) has proposed a new diagnosis, Hypersexual Disorder, for inclusion in the Sexual Disorders section of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), to be published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Kafka indicates that “Hypersexual Disorder is conceptualized as primarily a nonparaphilic sexual desire disorder with an impulsivity component” (p. 377). As will be seen, Kafka’s proposed diagnostic criteria do not indicate that the sexual interest must be either nonparaphilic or have an impulsivity component.

The problems with Kafka’s (2010) proposal are much more pervasive. His “Historical Overview of ‘Excessive’ Sexual Behaviors” is erroneous (p. 378). He is correct that, throughout history, there has been interest in the “appropriate” frequency of some sexual behaviors, but the frequent behaviors clinically documented by early sexologists (masturbation, non-marital coitus, sodomy) were notnormophilic for the historical...